“Nay-ay-ay-ay, lad! I mean ’bout being a zlave. Here’s these niggers brought here and made zlaves of, and they zettles down to it as happy-go-lucky as can be. They don’t zeem to mind. They eat and drink all they can, and zleep as much as they can, and they do as little work as they can. Why, I zometimes did three times as much hoeing as one o’ they in a day; and that aren’t bragging.”
“No, Pete; they took it very easy.”
“I should just think they did, my lad; and then the way they’d laugh! I never zee any one laugh as they could. I s’pose that’s what makes their mouths zo big and their teeth zo white. Gets ’em bleached by opening their mouths zo wide.”
“Look, Pete!” whispered Nic. “Wasn’t that something moving on the right bank?”
“Yes; I zee it, Master Nic. Dunno what it was, but it waren’t a man on the watch. Zay; they aren’t got another boat anywhere, have they?”
“Oh no; I feel sure they have not,” said Nic sharply.
“Then we’re all right. This water’s running zwift, and we’re making the boat move pretty fast. They can’t zwim half as fast as we’re going, and they’ve no horses, and the dogs can’t smell on the river, even if they made a raft of the trees they’ve got cut down yonder.”
“It would take them a day, Pete.”
“Ay, it would, Master Nic; and going on as we’re going, we shall be a long way on at the end of a day.”
“Yes; we shall be some distance towards the mouth. I begin to think, Pete, that we shall really manage to escape.”